Ranking The '80s

Book excerpt: Ranking the '80s is the Who's Who and the What's What of pop music in the video decade.It's the complete reference. All the singles and all the albums, as well as all the acts that recorded them, ranked and indexed. Chart statistics are included for each record-Entry, Peak, Weeks at Peak and Total Weeks. Every single's entry includes writers, producers and the album from which the single came. The top writers and producers are ranked, and listed along with the acts and singles for whom they wrote and produced.Acts and records-both singles and albums-are brought together in united references with the acts in alphabetical order and the records sorted by chart strength. Vital statistics for both acts and albums are included.Ranking the '80s is full of new analytics. Albums are scored two ways: on the album's chart strength and according to the chart strength of the singles they produced. The difference can be telling: which albums are collections of hits and which albums are greater than the sum of their parts? Acts are analyzed as well: Which acts are singles acts and which are album acts?There is a unique Chronology section-a two-page graph and text snapshot of the decade for the top 20 singles acts and top 20 album acts. Each vignette traces singles history, album history week-to-week, important interactions between singles and albums, and a narrative summary of the act's decadal chart achievements.Then there are the fun lists:Highest scoring singles and albums never to make the weekly top 5Lowest scoring number 1sWeakest followup releases to number 1 hitsActs with consecutive number 1sActs with the most records and the most weeks in the Top 10, Top 40 and on the chartsMost records on the charts simultaneously?and many, many more